January 7, 2009

As the fighting between Israel and Hamas continues today, the death toll has reached almost 600 in Gaza. About 10 Israeli soldiers and civilians have been killed. University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) political scientist Renato Corbetta, Ph.D., an expert in international conflict, is available for interviews before 12:30 p.m. and after 4 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 7, and Friday, Jan. 9, to discuss the conflict in the region and how third-party interventions are used to resolve international conflicts. Corbetta can also discuss how conflicts in the region have impacted past U.S. presidents.

Corbetta teaches in the UAB Department of Government. He has published articles in journals such as Conflict Management and Peace Science and Political Research Quarterly.

"The tragedy here is the lack of diplomatic space in this situation," said Corbetta. "We are talking about two actors in a conflict in which there is no room for any sort of a deal. ... To resolve the conflict we need to see either some type of dramatic military solution where Israel weakens Hamas so that they relent, or have a Middle East country [intervene] and negotiate with Hamas to get them to relent. But for right now, neither side is willing to negotiate."

"For [President-elect] Obama, one of the things that he will learn is that every president who tried to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict in his first year in office suffered enormous political damage," said Corbetta. "It is an all-consuming issue, and he [Obama] would run the risk of derailing other issues like the economy. So Obama is at a crossroads and is faced with high expectations, but he should resist spending his political capital on the conflict."